Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde by Rebecca Dana A True Story

...the limitations an author or character faces shouldn't be the shortcomings of a book.
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Synopsis

“For a generation of women who grew up watching Sex and the City, Manhattan is the Promised Land—or as Rebecca Dana puts it in her hilarious, self-deprecating new memoir, it’s ‘my Jerusalem—the shining city off in the distance, the only place to go’…[An] insightful tale of two fish out of water.”—O Magazine

Rebecca Dana worshipped at the altar of Truman Capote and Nora Ephron, dreaming of moving to New York. After college, life in the city turned out just as she’d planned: glamorous parties; beautiful people; the perfect job, apartment and man. But when it all comes crashing down, she is catapulted into another world.

She moves into Brooklyn’s Lubavitch community, and lives with Cosmo, a young Russian rabbi and jujitsu enthusiast. While Cosmo faces his disenchantment with Orthodoxy, Rebecca finds that her religion—the books and films that made New York seem like salvation—has also failed her. Shuttling between the worlds of religious extremism and secular excess, faith and fashion, Rebecca goes on a search for meaning.

A mix of Shalom Auslander and The Odd Couple, Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde is a thought-provoking tale for the twenty-first century.

REBECCA DANA is a senior correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, where she writes the weekly “Social Diaries” magazine column and reports onflashion, culture, and entertainment. Before joining The Daily Beast, Dana was a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Observer.